Not a Sparrow Falls

by Linda Nichols

  “Time is something we might not have a lot of,” Newlee said. “Besides, I won’t be picking him up. The state patrol or Nelson County sheriff will do that.”

  Alasdair nodded. They drove, lights flashing but no sirens, everything silent except for the crackling of the radio.

  Thirty-Seven

  They made a stop in D.C. so Jonah could rip off somebody’s stereo from a car park. Then they had to find some fellow he knew who would give him fifty dollars for it and wait for him to come home. It was after eleven when they pulled into downtown Charlottesville. Jonah had shot up and had been talking nonstop for the last hour. Crazy stuff about spirits and demons and going to hell, and how he had thought it was his brain she had stolen, but actually it had been his heart. He had to be running out of gas pretty soon. He just had to.

  “I need something,” Jonah said. He pulled into the parking lot of a little grocery. It was closed, and he started yelling and saying he was going to drive the car through the plate-glass door.

  “The Piggly Wiggly by the bus station is open,” Bridie said quickly. “Want me to drive?”

  He glared at her but turned the car in the right direction, and thank goodness, she was right about its being open. But nothing was easy with Jonah. First he wanted her to go inside. Then both of them. Then just her again. Then him. It reminded Bridie of those riddles about a fox and a chicken and a sack of corn and you can only fit two things on the boat and make three trips across. He didn’t want to leave her in the car because he knew she’d drive away, and he didn’t want to let her go inside because he was afraid she’d run out the back door. Finally he told her to go inside but not to do anything smart.

  “If you’re not out in five minutes I’m going to shoot somebody,” he said, and pulled out his gun just to make sure she knew he meant it. “Her,” he said, pointing to the woman in the next car, who he said was Annie Oakley, “or him,” he said, and added that the man gathering up grocery carts in the parking lot was the doctor who’d run off with his tractor.

  “I’ll be right back,” she promised. “Just don’t do anything crazy.”

  She bought his malt liquor and two boxes of diet pills. She didn’t dare pile on the cold medicine for fear they’d get suspicious. She carried her purchases to the register and realized her bitter threat had come true. She’d said she might as well go back to dealing. Well, here she was. How did it feel? she asked herself. Did it feel right? Like she’d landed where she belonged? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t know how she felt other than tired and hungry and run-down and coldly bitter. She had no idea who she was bitter at. Herself? God, for making it so hard to get a break?

  The man who checked her out was a bandy-legged little fellow with thin hair that he had twirled all around trying to cover up his bald spot. He gave her a suspicious look. She paid for the stuff and left as quickly as she could. She looked back once and saw him standing in the window watching her as she got back into the car.

  Jonah drove up the road a ways, pulled off into a dive motel, had her go inside and rent a room. He had his equipment in the trunk, and he made her carry it in—Mason jars, Pyrex dishes, tubing, a bottle of lye. Good. The sooner he cooked himself up some more candy and took it, the sooner he’d peak, and the sooner he’d crash. You couldn’t rev your engine forever.

  “You set it up,” he said once they were inside the room, taking a pull on his beer, still flinging the gun from side to side.

  “I don’t know how.” It was the truth.

  He told her how. She did the best she could, washing her hands well when she was finished. He got up and started doing his thing. She rested on the bed, taking care not to turn down the covers for fear of lice or bedbugs, not even taking off her jacket. He seemed to have forgotten about the money, which was good, since she had no idea what she would do when he asked for it.

  She must have slept. The next thing she knew he was leaning close, shaking her awake. “Let’s go,” he said. He made her carry his equipment out to the car, then they got in. Jonah drove. Bridie shaded her face from him as they merged onto the highway.

  She must have dozed. When she woke she saw the familiar landmarks, but instead of joy, shame hit her with the force of a blow.

  “No. Not here. Not like this. Please.”

  “I want my money,” Jonah said, “and I know you’ve hid it here.”

  ****

  Alasdair poured himself another cup of the Charlottesville Police Department’s stale coffee and found a packet of cocoa for Samantha. He took them back to the reception area’s vinyl couch and checked his watch. All night long and still no word since the hope-raising call from the grocery store manager. Odd, to have your heart encouraged by news of a loved one’s impending arrest.

  Newlee finished talking to the desk sergeant. He rejoined them, pulling up the metal chair, shaking his head. “There’s no point in staying here,” he said gently. “We’ll hear if they find him. When they find him, I should say. These types always screw up sooner or later.”

  The problem was the damage he might do before that happened. Alasdair shook his head. “We’re staying,” he announced flatly. “You go back if you need to,” he told Newlee. “We’ll find our way home.”

  Samantha grabbed his hand and gave him a blinding smile.

  Newlee shook his head. “I’m good if you are,” he said, then went to pour himself another cup of coffee.

  Alasdair settled back onto the couch and tried to relax his tense muscles. There was nothing he could do, he realized. Nothing at all except wait and pray that this story would have a happy ending.

  Thirty-Eight

  Hattie had prayed away most of the morning. She’d had another one of her dreams last night and been laboring over it. Martha had come in a little while ago and joined her in prayer. Finally their spirits had cleared.

  “It’s all right now,” Hattie had said. “The battle’s done been won. All that’s left is to gather up the spoils.”

  “Um-hum. Yes, Lord,” Martha had agreed.

  Since then Hattie had been waiting patiently, maybe dozing off a little now and then, reading and listening to Martha’s iron shush steam as she smoothed a path across the landscape of wrinkles. She’d press once, twice, three, four times, then flip the pillowcase over and do the same on the other side. The cotton was white beneath her dark fingers. She folded it in half, pressed, then quartered, then pressed again. The pleasant smell of steam and starch mixed with the roast she was cooking.

  Hattie must have dozed, lulled asleep by Martha’s rhythm. She startled awake to the crunch of gravel.

  Martha set down the iron, went to the window, and pulled back the curtain. Her eyes widened, and she put her hand over her heart. “Lord, have mercy,” she said. “You were right, Miss Hattie.” She dropped the curtain and headed for the door.

  ****

  There it was. Home, or the closest thing Bridie had to it on earth—this old white clapboard house with a sloping tin roof and wide front porch. The glossy boxwoods and huge azaleas still nestled up against its foundation. Farther out on the wide green lawn, just as she remembered, were the two big oaks—dogwood and redbud underneath, just beginning to pink. Off to the side was the stand of white pines. Behind it, just as they’d appeared in her dreams, were the misty blue mountains. But this wasn’t how she’d wanted to come home. Not like this. Never.

  Jonah pulled the Fury to a stop halfway down the long driveway. “Where’d you hide it?” he asked. “In the bee stands?”

  She shook her head.

  “Where, then? Down by the spring? In the woods somewhere? Off by that clearing where you used to play house?”

  She shook her head. “Jonah, the money’s gone.”

  He blinked at her, his face blank.

  “Somebody stole it the first day. On the bus.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. That’s why I turned you in. So you couldn’t come after it.”

  He looked at her intently for
a minute. “I think my legs have popped off,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

  He shifted the car into park and turned off the ignition. “We’re going inside.”

  “No.” That could not happen.

  She felt the gun against her temple. She opened her eyes.

  “Get out.”

  She opened the door and climbed out, the crunch of gravel on her feet the only reminder that this was not a bad dream. Jonah followed. The gun wasn’t at her head anymore, but it wasn’t very far away, either.

  The screen door screeched open and closed, and Bridie looked up toward the porch, forgetting about Jonah, the gun, the money. She stopped walking, shocked and frozen in place at what she saw.

  The woman who had come out wasn’t Grandma. It was a black woman. She stood, one hand on her hip as she inspected the approaching visitors. It was all Bridie could do not to crumple to the ground, so sharp was her grief.

  She’d waited too late, stayed away too long. Grandma was gone. She stood still, only her eyes moving. There was the swing she’d played on as a child. There was the hollow where she’d made a playhouse. Back there were Grandpa’s bee stands and the apple orchards. Grandma’s clothesline peeked from behind the house. Everything familiar about this place now seemed to taunt and mock her. None of it was hers anymore. Now it belonged to someone else, and the one she loved best in all the world, her dearest on earth, was gone. Pain ripped and tore through her chest with every breath and thump of her heart. She had waited too late to come home.

  The black woman stood waiting. Bridie’s feet began moving, almost on their own. She climbed the steps slowly. The woman cast a doubtful eye on Jonah, but she didn’t seem frightened. She turned to speak to someone in the house.

  “She’s here, Miss Hattie,” she said.

  At that name Bridie’s heart leaped into her throat. The woman opened the screen door, Bridie stepped through the doorway, and there was Grandma sitting in a wheelchair, just as though she’d been waiting for them. She was a little more frail than Bridie remembered, more crippled up with the arthritis, but her eyes were still bright and she wore the same sweet smile. She was dressed in a navy blue polka-dot dress, wearing her Hush Puppies, her large-print Bible open on her lap. Bridie went to her, fell to her knees beside the chair, and her grandmother gathered her into her arms. She felt the tears start to flow. Not for long, though. Jonah jerked her away roughly and shoved her farther into the house.

  “Shut the door,” Jonah ordered the black woman, who gave him a haughty look and didn’t budge.

  “Go ahead, Martha,” Grandma said. “Though I think you should keep a civil tongue in your head, Jonah Porter.”

  Jonah looked surprised, then mumbled he was sorry.

  Bridie wiped her eyes and gave him an incredulous look. She shouldn’t be surprised, though. Nothing evil or destructive ever had managed to stay that way in Grandma’s presence. Or maybe Jonah was just getting ready to crash and losing his hold on things. He seemed to weave a little bit as he walked around the room. But he was still pacing, counting out loud as he stepped over the squares of linoleum.

  Grandma shook her head and gave a little click of her tongue. “They’re awful things, them drugs.”

  You could say that again. Bridie pulled a chair out, sat down beside Grandma, and took her hand.

  Jonah stopped pacing and seemed to remember why he was here. “Where’d she put it?” he asked Grandma.

  “Put what?”

  “My money.”

  That set Grandma off. “I’m not studying any money, Jonah Porter. And you shouldn’t be, either. You should be tending to your soul.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face and waved the gun toward Bridie. “Get up,” he said.

  She got up, giving Grandma’s hand a final pat.

  Jonah went to the wall and jerked out the telephone. He grabbed one of Grandma’s carving knives from the counter and cut the cord in two, then shoved the gun against Martha’s head and bored his eyes into Bridie’s. “If any police come here, I’m shooting both of them.”

  “Lord, have mercy,” Martha said. “Put that thing down.”

  “Don’t do that, Jonah. Please,” Bridie begged. How had they ended up here? She had to get him away before somebody got hurt. Where would they go, though? Everywhere there was somebody who might get hurt, whether by Jonah firing a gun at somebody who looked like Annie Oakley or just by selling them meth. And that’s when she decided what she had to do.

  She went ahead and did what he told her to do for the next four hours. Emptied out every blessed drawer, cupboard, closet in the house and shoved the broom under every stick of furniture. Even went outside and poked around a few hiding places there. “It’s not here,” she finally said again, as exasperated as she’d ever been in her life. “I’m telling you the truth. It got stolen.”

  He blinked again and didn’t seem to understand what she’d said. She shook her head and went back into the kitchen, leaving him staring stupidly after her. Right about now she didn’t much care if he shot her or not. Martha was calmly serving up the pot roast and taking a pan of biscuits from the oven when she walked into the room. He followed after her, blinking, trying to take things in.

  “Let’s all have some dinner,” Grandma said. Bridie smiled. This was unreal. But it was real. There was the table, covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth and those old flowered dishes. Martha put out a Mason jar full of damson jelly.

  “Reach that extra chair over there, if you please,” she said to Jonah. He did as he was told, and Bridie half expected him to say “yes, ma’am.”

  They all sat down, Grandma said grace, and Bridie fell to her food in spite of the seriousness of the situation. She was starving. She tried to remember the last time she’d eaten and couldn’t.

  “Jonah Porter, do you know who you’re named after?”

  He came out of his stupor long enough to look at Grandma as if she were crazy. “It was my granddaddy’s name,” he said. His speech was slurred. His eyes at half-mast. He was losing it, and Bridie wanted to shout with joy. She helped herself to another biscuit instead and spread it with butter and plum jelly.

  “I’m talking about Jonah in the Bible,” Grandma said, and Bridie recognized the Sunday-school teacher voice. She shook her head and grinned. Only Grandma could take a hostage situation and turn it into an evangelistic opportunity.

  Grandma peered severely at Jonah and went on with her lecture. “The Lord said go right, and he went left, and you’re just exactly like him. Ever since you was a little chap, you was contrary,” she pronounced. “Throw you in the river, and you’d float upstream.”

  Jonah blinked.

  “The Lord called Jonah, but instead of obeying, he run off from the presence of the Lord. Just like you’re doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I know for a fact the Lord’s put a call on you, Jonah Porter. Don’t you remember that Vacation Bible School when you come forward? And now this is how you go and do.”

  Jonah’s head drooped.

  “Don’t you fall asleep while I’m talking to you.”

  He jerked it back up again. “No, ma’am.” He blinked.

  “Now, the Lord didn’t let the prophet Jonah get by with flying in His face, and He’s not going to let you get by with it, neither. He sent a great fish to swallow him. And I’d say you’re about as near inside the belly of a whale yourself as anybody I’ve ever seen.”

  Jonah stared and blinked, eyes drooping again.

  Bridie took a sip of iced tea and watched Grandma move in for the close.

  “Now you’ve got a choice to make. You can go on and do like you’ve been doing, or you can do like Jonah in the Bible did. He prayed unto the Lord his God to get him out of the belly of the whale. You can, too. Just because you’ve done bad don’t mean you have to stay that way. Besides, what are you thinking you’re going to do here? Kill us all? Don’t make no difference to me
, nor Martha neither. We’re going on to glory. But is that really what you want?”

  Jonah rubbed his hand over his face. “Mary B, you’ve got to tell me what you did with that money,” he said, almost pleading.

  “Jonah, I swear to you on my grandma’s Bible, that I don’t have it. I’m telling you the truth. Somebody stole it from me, I hope to die.” A bad choice of words.

  Jonah shook his head. Then he gave her a look that was almost completely lucid, and for just a minute she glimpsed the old Jonah in this brief window between the high and the crash. He gave her a crooked half smile. “You’re killing me, Mary. You really are.”

  “Call on the Lord, Jonah,” Grandma urged. “It’s not too late.”

  Jonah stood, almost knocking over his chair. “Yes, it is, Miss Hattie.”

  “Never.” Grandma shook her head, her lips pressed together.

  “Um-um,” Martha agreed. “No, sir. It’s never too late.”

  “Y’all are driving me crazy,” he said, and just as if he were stepping out to take a smoke, he walked out the door.

  They stared after him. Bridie bobbed up and went to the window. He got into the Plymouth, started it up, and backed out the long driveway in a cloud of dust.

  “Well,” Grandma said.

  “Um-um.” Martha shook her head and took a sip of her iced tea.

  Bridie went and sat back down. This was an unforeseen turn of events.

  Grandma turned toward Bridie next. “Well, missy,” she said, “I guess it’s up to you now. What are you going to do?”

  It didn’t take her long to decide. She got up and went out the front door and cut through the woods. She hiked about a quarter of a mile, then went up to the door of the Cassidys, who still lived here, she was happy to see.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Cassidy asked, big-eyed, not unlatching the screen. Apparently Bridie’s reputation had preceded her.

  “I was wondering if I might use your phone,” Bridie said.

  “Who you calling?” Mrs. Cassidy asked. “I’ll dial it for you.”

  She told her, then went back to Grandma’s to wait.

  “I knew you’d be back,” Martha said. She had the dishes nearly done.